Understanding Biden’s surprising China-Taiwan comments

Good morning! It's Monday, May 23. I'm Shumita Basu, this is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.

President Biden is launching a new trade deal with 12 Indo-Pacific countries, including Japan, India, South Korea, and Australia. The countries say this pact will help prepare their economies for the future after disruptions caused by the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. That's an expected part of Biden's trip to Asia, but the headlines this morning focus on what he said about Taiwan and China. He got a question that a lot of presidents get, but he gave an unexpected answer.

Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?

Yes. You are?

That's the commitment we made.

In just a few seconds of Q&A, experts from Washington to Beijing were checking their ears and wondering, wait, did decades of American policy just change? "Reuters" explains how, for a long time, the U.S. stance was called "strategic ambiguity." Washington didn't say whether the American military would defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. That was seen as the best way to make China think twice about going after the island without directly threatening it. It has stepped up activity around Taiwan in recent years. China's foreign ministry quickly responded to Biden's comments, expressing "strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition." Biden's answer on Taiwan may not have been planned as the White House moved quickly to clarify there's been no change in policy toward Taiwan.

A new report reveals major failures to protect children from abuse at one of America's most powerful and influential religious organizations. A third-party investigation involving hundreds of interviews found that, for decades, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention silenced sexual abuse survivors and dismissed reforms that could have kept predators away from children. SBC officials did not immediately comment on the report.

Now to Ukraine, where this morning, 21-year-old Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin has been convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison. He shot an unarmed, 62-year-old civilian. It's the first war-crimes trial in the violent conflict that's still unfolding. We reached out to "NPR" national security correspondent Greg Myre, who's been in Kyiv covering this case. Last week in court, the widow of the man killed confronted the man who shot her husband.

She said, "What were you feeling when you shot my husband? Tell me, please." And Shishimarin, who's been very contrite throughout this trial, said, "I felt very stressed, very fearful. And I know you probably can't forgive me, but I ask for your forgiveness." Myre has covered wars for decades. This one has had many reports of atrocities.

We've just seen the Russians carry out case after case where they've attacked civilians. Either shot at civilians, as we've seen in this case, attacked civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, there've been accusations of rape and looting, big missile strikes on apartment buildings, on schools. So Ukraine has made a very concerted effort from the very beginning to document these cases.

The French Open is underway with Rafael Nadal in action today. "Sports Illustrated" has a profile of the Spanish tennis star. If you don't follow tennis and you only know his name but not his story, this piece is a good read. There's a lot of focus on his intensity. It's brought him many Grand Slam wins, but also, it seems, a string of injuries. There have been questions as to how much the 36-year-old has left in him. Ahead of the tournament, he got a lot of questions about how he's working through his injuries.

In my case, it's something that I live every day with that, so it's nothing new for me, and it's not a big surprise. So I am here just to play tennis and try to make the best result possible.

"SI" picked out a telling statistic that says a lot about Nadal. There's an official "under pressure" ranking. It measures how often a player converts break points, you know, preventing the loss of a game. Nadal is number one in that category, hands down. He pulls through nearly half of the time. More than any other player. Now, at the French Open, he is under pressure to recover from recent injuries, to face down younger players, to pull off a win that could put him in the record books. This "SI" piece makes the case that he's more than up to the challenge.

You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.